Re: How to define "magic" (was Re: Fantasy relativity)

>From: Andrew 'NightBeing' Alchemist <xboct@??????.??????.kz>
>Reply-To: Discussion list for the Spelljammer campaign

> > 4 and 5.1st and 2nd principle of thermodynamics (1st is conservation of
> > energy, 2nd states that enthropy (chaos) always increases, so phenomena
> > cannot be entirely reversible).
>
>IIRC,  2nd  states  that  enthropy  never  decreases,  but  there is a
>possibility of processes in a closed system that do not increase it as
>long as they do not interact with outside world.

Uhh theoretically yes, but due to tunnel effect and blackbody radiation it
is impossible to separate completely a system from the rest of the universe.

>
> > We could then define as magic anything that violates these principles.
>
>I think no.
>
>1st:  don't  mess up "magic" and "divine". IMO, magic does not violate
>thermodynamics principle -- it draws energy from somewhere not readily
>obvious,  but  it  does  not create it from thin nothingness. Anything
>that breaks these two principles requires a divine intervention.

Am I right in guessing that you think that arcane magic draws energy/matter
from another plane? That thought bothered me more than once. We could agree
to call "magic" the violation of the principles in the plane, not accounting
for extraplanar sources of energy.

>
>Again,  its  just  a  MO.  I always strongly disliked (A)D&D system in
>regard  to  its  priests, for they are just those same spellcasters as
>mages, only with different spell repertoire.

Yup. I worked out a revision of ADnD with some changes to mages, I was bored
by that overlap twixt mages and priests.

>
>2nd:  what  about  inter-/extra-planar phenomena? They not necessarily
>will  all  fit  into  this  scheme.  Are  they all magic? Are they all
>mundane? Or something in-between?

As I stated before, I'm simplifing it to a single PMP. We physicists call it
"the spherical cow postulate". You know the joke about an engineer, a
psychanalist and a physicist who have been hired to increase the production
of milk of a farm? The engineer's answer is something like "gotta
rationalise... automated milking... robotic cleaning", while the
psychanalist mutters about "paint everything green... play Mozart while the
cows are getting milked..." and rubbish like that. The the physicist scoffs
lightly at the other two and says "I've been calculating, starting with a
small approximation, and now I've discovered the perfect method to increase
milk production as much as one wants. I'm explaining. Let us assume a
spherical cow..." .

Silmacar Halfelven
Captain of the Guards of Cardolan

"Since this Galaxy began, vast civilizations have risen and fallen, risen
and fallen, risen and fallen so often that it's quite tempting to think that
life in the Galaxy must be
a) something akin to seasick - space-sick, time sick, history sick or some
such thing, and
b) stupid."



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